TMC is an independent, primarily volunteer organization that relies on ad revenue to cover its operating costs. Please consider whitelisting TMC on your ad blocker and becoming a Supporting Member. For more info: Support TMC

Hi everyone, I don't post here often but felt I have a little info some may find cool. A few weeks ago I took my family to Disneyland for a vacation. We were there for 6 days and had a 5 day pass, allowing one day for a "Dad day" (rent a Tesla since I've never gotten to drive one, and see F9-021 on display at SpaceX) on Wednesday the 14th around noon.

Ended up getting a Model X off Turo and went to see the Falcon 9 booster immediately, along with my first SC stop just because it's awesome. After initially backing into the SC space as I've seen is necessary in pics at other charging stations (probably got a few head shakes from people walking by on their lunch break) I corrected by parking at a space close to the front doors to the Design Studio. Since we had just gotten the car and was still learning the controls we stuck around for a few before walking to the booster, despite my 4-year-old working up to a tantrum over "not doing anything." I noticed a van parked off to the side near the Tesla obelisk, not in any space and thought it peculiar- a Model S was occupying the space closest to the Design Studio front doors.

After figuring out how to open the charge port we got plugged in, admired the car a little longer, chatted with another Tesla owner and let my daughter use the FW doors before walking off to the booster. The charging Model S nearby moved and the van backed into the space, which made me think "ultimate ICEing: at their flagship location!" In the minutes prior to setting off I observed 3 well-dressed men standing at the back of the van's open rear door chatting and laughing. I was distracted with managing my daughter's incoming tantrum to "go see the rocket" while 2 of the guys grabbed a model out of the back and hurriedly shuffled into the front doors and it hit me: I'm somewhat sure the 3rd guy was Franz Von Holzhausen and that model was definitely a new vehicle. (Have only seen Franz in photos on articles and his short talk prior to introducing Elon at the Model 3 reveal, so I could be mistaken.)

I've been bummed daily that I did not have the foresight or yelling/flailing child in arms to TRY snapping a pic or at least afford it more time to soak into my retinas. I had initially decided to not post anything due to the fear of someone getting in trouble for not concealing it better- they had what looked like a small blackboard but didn't use it to obscure the view from the few of us parked at the SC until it was within view for a few seconds... Plus the lack of photographic evidence and a murky recollection of what it looked like. Everyone else was simply doing their thing- visiting a supercharger is nothing cool to them so they were just on their phones. But little old me, practically hyperventilating at being in the middle of a whole lotta innovation took notice...

I can say with certainty it was not a conventional personal vehicle we know is coming like the Model Y (Confident they are much further than scale model with that) but perhaps a version of the smaller public transport bus spoken of in Master Plan Part Deux. It was unlike anything currently made as far as looks: like making a 15-passenger van more aerodynamic. The model was as I had thought to be a cutaway to display the interior, but then today with my realization that if it were their bus it could be large FW doors to allow access to 4 rows of seating!

Elon has mentioned before that the bus would be made on the Model X chassis, which makes more sense now. Access to front seats by 2 regular doors, and 4 rows accessed by huge Falcon Wing doors! Looking much more forward now to seeing this thing next year!

Wish I had more details! But as mentioned I had thought it was a cutaway to show the interior, but realized today it may have been to show how wide the theoretical large FW door opening would be. No ajar door above it, just a large empty spot in the top and side. Again, this is from a collected fractions of a second in total from the few glimpses I could manage while trying to help my kid from having a blow-up.

That makes sense, and I thought today it would suck in cold weather- If practically half the car opens frequently to pick up/drop off passengers most of that heat is going to evacuate quickly. Two sets of FW doors it would have to be.